Review: TransferCar
Pick up a free car on your way to anywhere.
UPDATE: Executives have provided further details. The Q&A has been posted at bottom.
When seasons change or special events create unusual demand, rental car companies need to move vehicles all over the country. This means wasting employee time or paying for trucks to haul them back and forth. Often poor planning and odd flukes mean that two companies have cars moving in opposite directions.
Fortunately, you’re available to help them out.
Want to drive to Las Vegas for a couple of days? Use TransferCar to pick up a sedan in Los Angeles and drop it off in Vegas, then pick up another for the drive back — both free, including gas and insurance. If you want to extend your trip and see some friends in the Bayeria, book a car from Las Vegas to San Francisco, then swap that later for another from SF to LA.
TransferCar manages the overstock for rental car companies and matches their needs with yours. While many rental companies offer this and solicit drivers for one-way trips, none of them have made it especially easy. More importantly, there has never been an easily accessible central market for this. TransferCar is an obvious win for consumers.
The cars available generally reflect what you would normally see in the rental market, though there are a surprising number of motor homes and some campers (maybe some geographic bias — there seem to be fleets of motor homes on the Australian site right now.)
Once the market is mature, you’ll likely be able to drive the same cars from the same companies that you normally would when traveling.
Each rental company they work with has slightly different policies, but TransferCar CTO Espen Grimstad mentioned on ProductHunt that none of the cars will be more than $5. Insurance and gas may not always be included, though about half of the cars I saw explicitly stated that all expenses were covered. Though this may be optimistic, I expect market maturity to take care of any minor fees and quickly drive all consumer costs down to zero.
Get Paid to Get Away
Enterprising California drivers could make weekend getaways profitable by combining TransferCar with peer-to-peer rental services like Flightcar or RelayRides.
- Drop your car at SFO to earn rental income while you’re away.
- Use TransferCar to drive to LA with all your gas paid for.
- Pick up a return car a few days later and drop it back at SFO.
- Get your car back and get paid for the rentals that occurred while you were hanging out with friends in LA.
It’s a little effort, but it will give you a free trip and pay for a few fish tacos in Venice.
Altogether, I love the concept and the execution I’ve seen so far. The consumer market is ready for TransferCar and it appears they have enough traction with vehicle suppliers that consumers can easily begin using the system.
Executing well delivers great value in a niche market ripe for disruption.
The one weak indicator that concerns me is the lack of emphasis on their appearance and PR. For instance, their site design is few years behind their peers, and the blog appears to be generated by a content farm (Eco-Tourism and “Things to do in NYC” are not relevant, especially on the Australian site). It also doesn’t help that their U.S. domain name Transfercarus sounds like a newly discovered dinosaur.
Some of this is certainly attributable to early stage budget constraints, but there have also been decisions about priorities that reveal some weakness in the team. An email to their U.S. office for some basic info on the company didn’t receive a reply for over 12 hours. Not a terribly damning issue, but surprising for a company that should be eager to communicate with both users and press.
The company may also face the challenge of limited resources across time zones. TransferCar first launched in New Zealand in 2008, began operations in Australia two years later, and just launched in the U.S. a few weeks ago. They are focused on the west coast for their earliest adopters, but hope to cover most of the U.S. within a year. They also have plans for Europe in the near future.
Managing rapid growth on multiple continents is no small feat. Though the business model is light and not very labor intensive, they will be juggling customer service, press, and team management around the world. More importantly, some local familiarity goes a long way with customers, and they will need more people in each of their new markets before long.
Altogether, I love what they are offering. TransferCar is a perfect example of how startups can disrupt almost any market segment by applying a little bit of technology to improve consumers’ everyday lives. Executing this simple concept well delivers great value in a niche market ripe for disruption.
Sign up now and try TransferCar yourself.
UPDATED: Further details from CTO Espen Grimstad:
When was TransferCar founded? in 2014 in the USA, and 2008 in New Zealand. We have been operating in Australia since 2010.
How many users and how many car companies do you have enrolled in Australia and New Zealand? We have 64,000 registered users and we deal with 100+ car rental operators over there.
How many rental companies are using the service in the US? Can you share their names? So far we have partnered with 10+ operators in the US, but I can’t reveal those company names just yet as we are still in the early phase of development. Several are in the top tier category.
How is the company financed? Are you open for new investment? We have received funding from Dennis Round, an American entrepreneur who founded Violation Management Services in 2001 and has since grown it to be the leading global company for managing traffic violations in the car rental and leasing industries. We are also seeking new investment in order to scale up as the potential of our start-up is huge.
Disclosures: I have no direct interest in any of the companies mentioned here.
Please comment here or connect with me on Twitter: @robmillis
